Bronwyn Boudicca (She/Her)
Founding Member, Canada Disability United
Bronwyn Boudicca is a vibrant, thoughtful young woman whose life has been shaped by both significant neurodevelopmental challenges and a deep, unmistakable sense of self. She has a strong moral compass, a calm clarity about right and wrong, and a gentle way of correcting people that can disarm a room.
Bronwyn communicates her values through action: kindness, fairness, and loyalty. She brings a grounded, human perspective to CDU’s mission—reminding the movement that policies aren’t abstract ideas; they are the texture of everyday life for disabled people and their families.
She loves her routines, her quiet spaces, and—above all—her huge Rhodesian Ridgeback, who is her closest companion and an essential part of her daily well-being. Bronwyn knows what environments work for her and what environments don’t, and she has spent her life pushing through systems that were rarely designed with her in mind.
At CDU, Bronwyn represents what this movement is fundamentally about: not theory, not bureaucracy, but real people whose lives deserve stability, inclusion, respect, and community. Her presence is a reminder to keep the work honest, accessible, and deeply rooted in lived experience
Cherise Craney (She/Her)
Founder, Canada Disability United
Cherise Craney is a lifelong disability rights advocate, caregiver, and community organizer with more than 26 years of lived experience supporting her adult daughter, Bronwyn, who has an intellectual and developmental disability. A published writer and policy thinker, she brings a rare blend of personal insight, academic training, and unapologetic determination to her work for disability justice in Canada. She also has dysthymia.
Cherise holds a BA in English Literature from UBC, a BSW from the University of Victoria, and an MA in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities—graduating with Distinction—from the Tizard Centre at the University of Kent, where she was awarded the School of Psychology’s Outstanding Effort Award. Her research focuses on social inclusion, belonging, and the deep structural gaps that families and disabled people navigate every day.
As a former long-time co-op board director, Cherise has spent 15 years elbows-deep in governance, crisis management, and housing policy. Those years shaped her understanding of how systems actually function—not in theory, but in the gritty, lived realities of tenants, families, and disabled people who are too often unheard.
Cherise founded Canada Disability United (CDU) with a simple, stubborn conviction: that people with disabilities and the unpaid caregivers who support them deserve real political power. Not symbolic consultation. Not “advisory” roles that go nowhere. Actual power. CDU is the beginning of a unified disability movement—one that crosses diagnostic categories, pushes back against austerity, and insists on rights, dignity, and material change.When she’s not writing or organizing, Cherise can be found raising her daughter, wrangling her beloved Rhodesian Ridgeback, and juggling far too many creative projects. She is guided, always, by the Stoic questions: Is it right? Is it kind? And is it necessary?
Adrian Estergaard (He/Him)
Member, Canada Disability United
Adrian has been an enthusiastic volunteer and project coordinator his whole life and has over 26 years experience working to create communities in the GVRD. He supports his adult daughter with her physical and mental disabilities and provides her with opportunities to overcome social challenges. As a web developer and technical professional as well as an award-winning writer and former journalist, Adrian brings a diverse range of skills and experiences to help tackle the difficulties of disability justice in Canada. He also has Type I Diabetes and manages a stress-induced anxiety condition.
Heather (She/Her)
Member, Canada Disability United
TBD
Saffron Brown (She/Her)
Founding Member
Saffron is a determined young adult, an artist, a comedian at heart, and a strong advocate for her own autonomy and rights. She expresses herself through her paintings, her humour, her actions, and in the ways that are uniquely her own.
Saffron identifies as a person with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) and as neurodivergent. She experienced a misdiagnosis of autism in childhood and was later diagnosed with ADHD as an adult. Her journey has included significant mental health challenges, but through those experiences she has continued to grow, develop her voice, and advocate for herself.
Saffron has a mixed expressive language profile and has made it clear that she prefers communication that is clear, direct, and simplified when engaging in discussions. Honouring the way Saffron communicates is an important part of respecting her autonomy. She has a voice, and she expects that voice to be heard.
Kindness is at the heart of who Saffron is. At the same time, she has a strong sense of justice and is not afraid to recognize when something is unfair and demand that injustices be addressed. She also has a playful side—Saffron is a comedian at heart and loves a good prank.
Saffron receives a small amount of Individualized Funding (IF), with her mother acting as her program manager. Through her individualized program, Saffron’s Adventures, she develops life skills based on her own interests, goals, and choices. Her program is not simply about learning skills; it is about creating opportunities for Saffron to explore what is meaningful to her and to build a life that reflects who she is.
Outside of her Individualized Funding, Saffron is developing employment and community skills through her volunteer role in childcare at her mother’s family daycare. This opportunity gives her a structured environment where she can contribute, build confidence, develop practical skills, and experience the responsibilities of a workplace.
Saffron values routine, predictability, and order. Having a balance between her volunteer work and individualized activities has helped create a structure that works for her. When that routine changes or is disrupted, Saffron communicates in her own way and may need time, space, and understanding to adjust. Respecting that need is part of respecting Saffron herself.
Saffron’s journey demonstrates what can happen when a person is surrounded by a community that believes in them, values their perspective, and makes room for them to grow. Her progress is not measured only by successes. Her setbacks, challenges, and the ways she works through them are equally part of her growth.
Through her lived experiences, Saffron has also developed an understanding of the different living arrangements available to people with disabilities. She has seen peers living in a variety of settings, and she has formed a dream of her own: a tiny home village where people can have their own homes while remaining connected to community, relationships, and the people they love.
Saffron’s vision is not about being placed somewhere that works for a system. It is about having a home and a life that work for her.
Her story is a reminder that authentic lives are built when people are given opportunities to make choices, develop their strengths, communicate in ways that work for them, and be surrounded by people who believe in their capacity to grow.
Saffron continues to show us that disability does not define the limits of a person’s life. With opportunity, support, respect, and genuine choice, people can build lives that are uniquely their own.
Sarb Mahli
Founding Member
For more than 35 years, I have worked in the social services sector, and for 25 of those years, I have also been a parent advocate—advocating for my daughter and for families of people with disabilities.
As a single parent, I raised my children while navigating systems and advocating for my daughter. That experience profoundly shaped who I am and how I understand disability, family, and the systems that are meant to support us.
Throughout my career and my personal journey, I have seen how often disability systems operate in fragmented ways rather than taking a holistic view of the person and their family. Too many families become lost, overwhelmed, and disempowered while trying to navigate systems that should be supporting them.
I believe that people with disabilities, including people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (PWID/DD), have voices that must be heard and respected. They have preferences, dreams, relationships, and the right to make meaningful choices about their own lives. I also believe families must be recognized as essential partners and empowered—not pushed aside or disempowered by the systems they are trying to navigate.
I am particularly passionate about the right of people with disabilities to have meaningful choices about where and with whom they live, including the choice to live at home with their families when that is what they want. Separating people with disabilities from their loved ones can be a deeply traumatic experience, affecting not only the individual but the entire family.
Over the years, I have worked to help families navigate systems, raise awareness, challenge policies and practices, build programs and services, and advocate for meaningful change. My approach is grounded in courage, compassion, persistence, collaboration, and a belief that solutions must be developed with people and families—not simply for them.
As a South Asian woman and a parent advocate, my perspective has also been shaped by the importance of family, community, belonging, and the realities of navigating systems from different cultural perspectives.
Today, I am entering an exciting new chapter. After raising my children and seeing my youngest complete his degree, I am now turning some of that energy toward my own educational journey. Much of what I have learned throughout my life has been through self-teaching—reading, researching, listening, questioning, observing, and learning directly from the experiences of people and families.
I see education as a lifelong journey. I am continuing to learn, to question what we have always accepted, and to deepen my understanding so that I can contribute more meaningfully to the changes I believe are needed.
As the founder of this organization, my vision is to help create a disability support system that sees the whole person, honours the voice of the individual, respects the role of family, and empowers people to live with choice, dignity, belonging, and connection.
My work is ultimately about empowerment: ensuring that people with disabilities and their families are not simply recipients of systems, but active participants in shaping the lives, communities, and futures they deserve.